A blog devoted to the actors and public policy issues involved in the 1998 District of Columbia Court of Appeals decision in Freedman v. D.C. Department of Human Rights, an employment discrimination case.

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

The following is the text of an email message I sent to the New York Field Office of the FBI yesterday, August 30, 2011. Incidentally, the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld has an office in Manhattan. Akin Gump senior counsel (NY office) Randy Levine, Esq. is also a trustee of The George Washington University (Washington, DC). Assistant U.S. Attorney Darrell Valdez in the Washington, DC
Office of U.S. Attorney is familiar with this matter.

I am writing to the NY Field Office of the FBI as a concerned citizen. I understand that the matter I am bringing to your attention falls outside the NY Field Office's jurisdiction. There is circumstantial evidence that I am committing a felony against the government of the United States. I have repeatedly brought this matter to the attention of the criminal division of the Justice Department and the Washington Field Office of the FBI. Both the DOJ and the FBI have brushed me off by saying this is a matter for the Social Security Administration.

I am concerned about public corruption at the highest levels of the Justice Department. Specifically, I am concerned that the Holder Justice Department will not investigate this matter because a full investigation might embarrass Attorney General Holder's close personal friend, Vernon Jordan. Further, both the head of the criminal division, Lanny Breuer, and the Attorney General, Eric Holder, are both former law partners of xxxxxxx x xxxxxxx, Esq. at the law firm of Covington and Burling. Mr. xxxxxxx is married to federal judge xxxxx xxxxx xxxxxxx. Also, Mr. Holder was a colleague of Judge xxxxxxx's when both served as judges on the D.C. Superior Court. I believe that both Eric Holder and Judge xxxxxxx are proteges of Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia's representative in Congress. As a concerned citizen I am specifically concerned about the possibility of an obstruction of justice at the highest levels of the U.S. Department of Justice.

When I was a college student at The Pennsylvania State University I took two history courses in the fall semester 1974 with Gerald Eggert, Ph.D.: History of the United States from Reconstruction to the Present (History 21) and History of the American Worker (History 368?). I earned a grade of A in each course, as I did in most of my history courses. Dr. Eggert served for several years as Chairman of the History Department at Penn State.

Dr. Eggert published his Ph.D. thesis as a book titled Richard Olney: Evolution of a Statesman.Richard Olney served as the Attorney General of the United States in the administration of President Grover Cleveland, and had a pivotol role in the Pullman strike. (Incidentally, current U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr., earned a degree in history from Columbia University).

In the year 2005 I had the following email correspondence with Dr. Eggert, who is now 85 years old.

September 24, 2005:

Dr. Eggert,

If you're at all interested, you can access my webpage at garfreed.blogspot.com

The webpage discusses my struggles with mental illness. I was a student in two of your courses, The History of the American Worker and History 21 (U.S. History since Reconstruction). You wrote a letter of recommendation for me for law school. I went on to law school and later attained an LL.M. in International
Trade Law.

I'm sending along a very nice communication I received from Dr. Gerald Eggert, who used to be the chairman of the history department at Penn State. I took two courses with Dr. Eggert at University Park. He wrote a letter of recommendation for me for law school, which I ultimately attended. I thought you might be
interested in what he wrote:

Dear Mr. Freed:

Your message received and appreciated. One of the things about being a teacher, you rarely know what impact if any you have had on your students--that is unless they thoughtfully contact you, as you have done. Truthfully, I can not say that I remember you, but then at age 79 and afflicted with Parkinson's Disease, there are a lot of things I do not remember. Fortunately my PD did not start until I was 75, so it did not interfere with my career. Some people get it at 25 or 35. Also to date I have not had the tremors that one often has with PD, so I can use a computer easily.

I regret to learn you have a mental illness. I tried to call up your blogspot but only got the message that the blog manager had ordered it taken down. However, though I have heard of blogs I am not sure I know
correctly how to retrieve them. If you would like to tell me about your problem feel free to contract me by ordinary e-mail.

Sincerely,

Gerald G. Eggert
professor emeritus, Department of History.

September 26, 2005:

Dr. Eggert,

Thank you for responding to my email. I had sent emails to several Penn State professors who had an impact on me, including Dr. Claire Hirshifield, history professor emeritus, Ogontz campus. I took the liberty of sharing your email with Dr. Hirshfield. I admired Dr. Hirshfield a great deal. To date, you have been the only teacher to respond to my communication.

Sorry to hear about your illness. My own mental illness has had me unemployed for a number of years now. But I live moderately well on Social Security disability. Fortunately, my apartment in Washington, DC is rent controlled.

I was able to access my webpage. It has not, in fact, been taken down.

Again, the site is at http://garfreed.blogspot.com/

An alternative way to access the webpage is to log onto blogspot.com -- then type in my username, which is garfreed -- and type in my password, which is xxxx

The blog continues at a second site -- username freedmantwo -- password xxxxx

You seem to have a positive attitude about your situation, which is heartening.

Warm regards,

GARY FREEDMAN

September 29, 2005:

Dr. Eggert,

Thank you very much for spending your time on the problems I presented to you. I failed to mention that I have registered with a DC agency that helps place disabled workers in employment. My hope is to find a satisfying job in the not-too-distant future, which will occupy my time and get me involved with people. I am actually more optimistic about my future than some of my writings suggest.

I was able to access your webpage and have read a portion of it--indeed as much as I am willing to spend my limited time on. I know of no solution to your problems, mental and otherwise. You have my sympathy which I know has little practical use. All I can do is tell you what my solution would be were I in your shoes. You have the ability to read, write, and understand very well. They are not substitutes for friends and human contacts, but do offer you an out of sorts.

As I told you, I have Parkinsons for which there is no cure, am nearly 80 years old for which also there is no cure, and find myself ever less isolated from society, I work on problems that interest me. For several years I have done genealogical research on my family and my wife's family, using the same rules of evidence as I learned to use when writing serious history. I am combining the facts of those peoples lives with my knowledge of the history they were living. My audience is my own family and relatives. What I write has no great significance, but it gives me purpose, occupies my time, helps me understand myself and my family better, and keeps me from self-pity.

I do not know your interests so can not advise you what to lose yourself in. To let yourself ramble as you do I would think only runs in circles and takes you no where. Old fashioned Puritan that I am, I feel that work is the answer to many of life's problems. My suggestion is sharpen and use the tools you have, create a purpose or goal, and get to work. Stop pitying yourself and regretting the past. The present and immediate future is all we have.

Incidentally, Brian Brown hasn’t contacted me about returning to the library. All the facts that prompted Brian to ban my access to the library continue to prevail: I still suffer from depression (for which I take medication); I continue to have feelings of anger about my past employment experiences and hope eventually to be compensated for my pain and suffering and I do not take antipsychotic medication, consistent with my legal rights. Also, I continue to use the public access computers in the DC Public Library System consistent with their intended use (unless I am advised that any particular use is prohibited). Were I to return to the Cleveland Park Branch, I fear that -- in the absence of some clarification by Brian about why he called the police on April 21, 2004 -- Brian could very well summon the police again, citing the same rationale that prompted his earlier action.

I still think that Brian and I could be really good friends for life -- like former President Clinton and Vernon Jordan.

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

I am writing to the NY Field Office of the FBI as a concerned citizen. I understand that the matter I am bringing to your attention falls outside the NY Field Office's jurisdiction.

There is circumstantial evidence that I am committing a felony against the government of the United States. I have repeatedly brought this matter to the attention of the criminal division of the Justice Department and the Washington Field Office of the FBI. Both the DOJ and the FBI have brushed me off by saying this is a matter for the Social Security Administration.

I am concerned about public corruption at the highest levels of the Justice Department. Specifically, I am concerned that the Holder Justice Department will not investigate this matter because a full investigation might embarrass Attorney General Holder's close personal friend, Vernon Jordan. Further, both the head of the criminal division, Lanny Breuer, and the Attorney General, Eric Holder, are both former law partners of xxxxxxx x xxxxxxx, Esq. at the law firm of Covington and Burling. Mr. xxxxxxx is married to federal judge xxxxx xxxxx xxxxxxx. Also, Mr. Holder was a colleague of Judge xxxxxxx's when both served as judges on the D.C. Superior Court. I believe that both Eric Holder and Judge xxxxxxx are proteges of Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia's representative in Congress.

As a concerned citizen I am specifically concerned about the possibility of an obstruction of justice at the highest levels of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Monday, August 29, 2011

I have added a new paragraph (paragraph 4) to my monthly criminal fraud certification per 18 U.S.C. § 4 (misprision of felony).

Criminal Division
U.S. Department of Justice

Dear Sir:

I believe the following statement discharges my duty per 18 U.S.C. § 4 (misprision of felony) to report the commission of a felony perpetrated against the Government of the United States. I certify under penalty of criminal prosecution for making false statements that the following declaration is true and correct to the best of my knowledge:

1. The U.S. Department of the Treasury made a wire transfer of $1288 to my bank account on September 3, 2011 per my claim of disability granted by the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA): disability claim no. xxx xx xxxx.

2. The SSA determined that I became disabled and not suitable for employment by reason of severe mental illness that may be associated with a risk of violent behavior, effective October 29, 1991. As part of my initial claim for benefits in 1993 I provided to SSA evidence that my direct supervisor (Christine Robertson) at the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, who reported directly to a senior management attorney (R. Bruce McLean, Esq.), advised her employees after my termination (effective October 29, 1991) that she feared I might return to the firm to kill her and arranged to have the firm take protective measures to guard against a possible homicidal assault (agency record at 41).

3. The SSA determined that I became disabled effective October 29, 1991 based on the sworn declaration of Laurence J. Hoffman, Esq. and Dennis M. Race, Esq. of the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, where I was employed until I was diagnosed with mental illness that might be associated with a risk of violence. Akin Gump's mental status determination, according to the sworn declaration, was made in consultation with a practicing psychiatrist (Gertrude R. Ticho, M.D.). Dr. Ticho (deceased) denied in a letter written on her letterhead in July 1993 and in a taped telephone conversation I had with her in October 1993 that she ever had any communications of the kind alleged by Akin Gump.

4. Comprehensive psychological testing performed by The George Washington University Medical Center Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (Washington, DC) in May 1994 and in March 1996 failed to disclose that I suffer from any mental illness of any kind and, further, failed to disclose the presence of any psychotic thought processes. In fact, I achieved a perfect score on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test in March 1996 -- a test of psychotic thinking -- which is unusual even in normal test subjects. I was not on any medication at the time of testing in 1994 or 1996.

5. The District of Columbia Court of Appeals affirmed (1998) a prior agency determination (1993) that found that Akin Gump's sworn declaration was factual and that the employer's mental status determination was genuine and credible, see Freedman v. D.C. Department of Human Rights, D.C.C.A. no. 96-CV-961 (Sept. 1, 1998), relying in part on the Brief on Appeal filed with the Court on July 25, 1997 by the D.C. Corporation Counsel.

6. On January 15, 2010 I was interviewed by Deputy Marshal xxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx of the U.S. Marshals Service (Washington, DC) who had concerns, based on my prior statements and conduct, that I might pose a continuing and indefinite risk of harm to U.S. District Court Judge xxxxx xxxxx xxxxxxx and the judge's immediate family. It was Judge xxxxxxx who in 1996 affirmed a prior agency determination that failed to find that Akin Gump's published statements that I might have been homicidal and extremely dangerous, see paragraph 2 above (agency record at 41), as of late October 1991 constituted acts of defamation motivated by a discriminatory animus. Judge xxxxxxx relied in part on inapposite case law to exonerate the apparent unlawful conduct of the law partners of Vernon Jordan.

The USMS imposed continuing and indefinite protective measures limiting my access to a public facility and to a house of worship. The protective measures imposed by the USMS are inconsistent with my employability under the Americans With Disabilities Act, which permits an employer to refuse to employ a disabled person who poses a risk of harm at a place of employment.

7. I believe that to the extent that SSA claim no. xxx xx xxxxx is based on the sworn declaration of Laurence J. Hoffman, Esq. and Dennis M. Race, Esq. that I became unemployable effective October 29, 1991, that I suffered from severe mental illness and posed a risk of violence as of said date, the claim is based on criminal fraud, a felony under federal law.

8. I believe that to the extent that SSA claim no. xxx xx xxxx is based on the aforementioned Brief on Appeal filed by the D.C. Corporation Counsel with the D.C. Court of Appeals, the claim is based on criminal fraud, a felony under federal law. I believe that the Brief on Appeal contains several material omissions of fact and law calculated to mislead the Court, misrepresents the agency record and findings, and constitutes a willful fraud by the D.C. Corporation Counsel on the D.C. Court of Appeals.

9. To the extent that Judge xxxxxxx exonerated the unethical conduct of a psychiatrist in providing an ex parte professional opinion about my mental health and stability to my former employer in violation of the American Psychiatric Association's Goldwater Rule, which prohibits such communications, Judge xxxxxxx exceeded her judicial power. A professional opinion offered by a psychiatrist about the mental health and stability of an individual whom she has not seen in private consultation does not meet the criteria established to ensure the reliability of an expert psychiatric opinion and has no more clinical value than a lay opinion and is therefore defamatory. Further, Judge xxxxxxx's action in exonerating the unethical conduct of a licensed professional -- conduct that was, in fact, illegal per D.C. Code §2-3305.14(26) as of the filing of the complaint in Freedman v. D.C. Dept. Human Rights -- at the behest of her husband's law partner (attorney for the defendant, Akin Gump), carries the appearance of impropriety.

10. I believe that to the extent that SSA claim no. xxx xx xxxx is supported by the action of the USMS in concluding that I pose a continuing and indefinite risk of harm to a federal judge (and that judge's immediate family), and in imposing continuing and indefinite restrictions on my access to a public facility and to a house of worship, the claim is based on criminal fraud, a felony under federal law. I believe that the USMS did not form a good faith belief that I pose a risk of harm nor was the interview that Deputy Marshal xxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxx conducted at my residence on January 15, 2010, or my prior conduct or statements that occasioned the interview, a sufficient basis to conclude that I pose a risk of harm. Further, I believe that the USMS interview was the product of a criminal conspiracy between the USMS and other(s) to intimidate me in the free exercise of my constitutionally-protected right to publish facts concerning the likely fraudulent nature of my SSA disability claim and the likely criminal conduct of attorney managers of the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld. 18 U.S.C. Section 241 (Conspiracy against Rights).

11. USMS Associate General Counsel xxx xxxxx (202-xxx xxxx) advised me by email on June 7, 2011 that a letter I sent to Judge xxxxxxx dated August 14, 2000 -- 10 years ago -- triggered the USMS concerns that I might pose a security risk to Judge xxxxxxx and prompted the USMS interview on January 15, 2010. That proposition is so ludicrous that it raises a substantial question about whether the stated reason for the USMS interview was simply pretext for an attempt by the USMS to try to intimidate me: a possible felony per 18 U.S.C. Section 241 (Conspiracy against Rights.)

The Honorable Eleanor Holmes Norton
Congress of the United States
House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515

RE: Possible Federal Civil Rights Violation

Dear Representative Norton:

Thank you for the letter of acknowledgement dated March 8, 2005 (copy attached) regarding a courtesy copy of my correspondence that was forwarded to your office by a fellow member of Congress.

The correspondence included a letter dated November 2, 2004 addressed to D.C. Police Chief Charles Ramsey that details a possible federal civil rights violation which falls within your federal legislative and administrative jurisdiction. The letter was contained on a computer disc and may have gone unread by your office.

It is my understanding that under U.S. Supreme Court rulings defamation by a state agency may constitute a federal civil rights violation. I was a victim of severe defamation at my last place of employment by a senior management attorney (Dennis M. Race, Esq.), my supervisor, and coworkers. The defamation was compounded by the D.C. Office of Corporation Counsel; and, moreover, the Corporation Counsel's actions were subsequently acquiesced in by the employer. See Freedman v. D.C. Department of Human Rights, 96-CV-961 (Sept. 1998).

James Edward Franco (born April 19, 1978) is an American actor, film director, producer, screenwriter, author, painter, performance artist and professor at New York University. He left college in order to pursue acting and started off his career by making guest appearances on television series in the 1990s. Franco landed a lead part on the short-lived cult hit television program Freaks and Geeks and later achieved recognition for playing the titular character in the TV biographical film James Dean (2001), for which he was awarded a Golden Globe Award. He achieved international fame with his portrayals of Harry Osborn in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy.

Franco is critically acclaimed as an actor. He has done both dramatic and comedic work in projects and has appeared in an eclectic range of projects since the 2000s, ranging from period to contemporary pieces, and from major Hollywood productions to less publicized indie films, as well as fantasy movies to biopics and soap operas. Other notable films include Pineapple Express, a stoner comedy that earned him his second Golden Globes nomination, the Harvey Milk-biopic Milk (both 2008) as well as Danny Boyle's 2010 movie 127 Hours, about real-life mountain climber Aron Ralston's struggle to free his hand from a boulder. His performance in 127 Hours earned him nominations for many high-profile awards, including the Academy Awards, Golden Globe and SAG Awards.

Nicknamed "Ted", James Edward Franco was born in Palo Alto, California. His mother, Betsy Lou (née Verne), is a poet, author, and editor, and his father, Douglas Eugene Franco, runs a non-profit agency and a shipping container company; the two met as students at Stanford University. Franco's father is of Portuguese and Swedish descent and Franco's mother is Jewish, a descendant of immigrants from Russia (her family's surname had been changed from "Verovitz" to "Verne"). His paternal grandmother, Marjorie (Peterson) Franco, is a published author of young adult books; his maternal grandmother, Mitzie (Levine) Verne, owns the Verne Art Gallery, a prominent art gallery in Cleveland, and was an active member in the National Council of Jewish Women.

Franco's family upbringing was "academic, liberal and largely secular." He grew up in California with his two younger brothers, Tom and Dave ("Davy"), the latter of whom is also an actor. Talented at mathematics, Franco interned at Lockheed Martin. Franco was often encouraged by his father to get good grades and did exceptionally well on his SATs. He graduated from Palo Alto High School in 1996, where he acted in plays. In his high school years, Franco was arrested for underage drinking, graffiti and for being a part of a group that stole designer fragrances from department stores and sold them to classmates. These arrests led to him briefly becoming a ward of the state. Facing the possibility of juvenile hall, a judge decided to give Franco a second chance. "It was teen angst. I was uncomfortable in my own skin. I was shy. I changed my ways just in time to get good grades", he recalled of his troubles with the law.

Although the idea of becoming a marine zoologist interested him, Franco had always secretly wanted to become an actor but feared rejection. He enrolled at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) as an English major, but dropped out after his freshman year against his parents' wishes to pursue a career as an actor, since he would have to have waited two years to audition for their acting program. Franco instead chose to take acting lessons with Robert Carnegie at the Playhouse West. Around this time, Franco took up a late-night job at McDonald's to support himself since his parents refused to do so. He was a vegetarian until working there. While working at the establishment, for his acting classes, he would practice accents on customers. Knowing that the aspiring actor was doing his best to follow his passion, Carnegie poignantly told Franco to pay him what he could and later on pay him back.

Franco has received an extensive education, and continues to do so. Dissatisfied with his career's direction, Franco reenrolled at UCLA in the fall of 2006 as an English major with a creative writing concentration. He received permission to take as many as 62 course credits per quarter compared to the normal limit of 19, while still continuing to act. He received his undergraduate degree in June 2008 with a GPA over 3.5. For his degree, Franco prepared his departmental honors thesis as a novel under the supervision of Mona Simpson. While at the university, the actor studied French, the Holocaust, philosophy of science, and American literature among other things. To continue acting, he would study on film sets.

He was selected as the commencement speaker at his alma mater, UCLA, and was to speak at the ceremony on June 12, 2009. On June 3, however, a press release announced Franco's cancellation due to a scheduling conflict, making it the second cancellation in a row, after commencement speaker Bill Clinton had canceled the appearance. On January 26, 2011, Franco and the Harvard Lampoon released a satirical video on prominent comedy website Funny or Die mocking his last-minute cancellation.

He moved to New York to simultaneously attend graduate school at Columbia University's MFA writing program, New York University's Tisch School of the Arts for filmmaking (NYU), and Brooklyn College for fiction writing, while occasionally commuting to North Carolina's Warren Wilson College for poetry. He received his MFA from Columbia in 2010. Franco is a Ph.D. student in English at Yale University and will also attend the Rhode Island School of Design. The actor opted against watching the 2011 Academy Award nominees be announced (where he was a top contender) in favor of attending class. "I’m not gonna miss class to go and presume that I’m going to be nominated, but if you want to bring out a camera crew to Yale and wait and see if I get nominated, I’d be happy to step out of class and say I’m very grateful", he commented.

He has been accepted to the University of Houston for the doctoral (Ph.D.) program – one of 20 people to be selected out of 400 applicants – in literature and creative writing and plans to enroll in fall 2012. Having previously shown a desire to teach, in March 2011, it was announced that Franco will teach a fall semester course on modifying poetry into short films to ten to twelve third-year graduate film students at NYU. The course will focus mainly on production, meaning that the students will be in charge of creating their own film based on poetry. At the time of the announcement the actor had yet to put together a syllabus, but has until the summertime to do so.

When asked about his education, Franco said that he loves school and that it keeps him focused as well as grounded. "I go to school because I love being around people who are interested in what I’m interested in and I’m having a great experience . . . I’m studying things that I love so it’s not like it’s a chore", he told the Washington Post, according to a New York Magazine article. Franco has also credited his education for helping him "take acting seriously" when his parents did not see it as a successful post-college career. Franco developed an aptitude for art—painting in particular—during his high school years while attending the California State Summer School for the Arts (CSSSA). Franco has said painting was the "outlet" he needed in high school, and he "has actually been painting longer than he has been acting." His paintings were displayed publicly for the first time at the Glü Gallery in Los Angeles, from January 7, through February 11, 2006. He launched his first European art exhibition in 2011 at Peres Projects in Berlin.

He enjoys reading on the set of his films. Pineapple Express producer Judd Apatow has said of him: "He's a very education-minded person. We used to laugh because in between takes he'd be reading The Iliad on set. We still haven't read The Iliad. It was a very difficult book. With him, it was always James Joyce or something."

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Several years ago I wrote an interpretation of a dream I had in 1990 that I titled "The Dream of the Four Miltons." The dream takes place at a hotel: a place where people are "always dropping in, always good food."

I have become ever more convinced that an important latent theme of the dream is the Clifford Odets play Paradise Lost (whose name is drawn from John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost) and my associations of that play to my childhood experiences in Atlantic City and other personal and psychological associations.

1. Paradise Lost concerns the Gordon family; the parents Leo and Clara have three children: Jules ("Julie"), Ben, and Pearl.

Storyline: The extended family of a middle-class American businessman succumbs in stages to the crushing pressures of the Great Depression beginning in 1932 when, while America is voting for Roosevelt and against Hoover, the breadwinner's resources are stretched to the limit and continuing in a grinding spiral through to the 1935 day when the family is to be evicted from their home with no place to go, nothing to do and no way even to buy food. Through it all, however, the head of the household hangs on to a set of moral values.

The final movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony features a tenor and chorus singing the following text that refers to a runner running his race. The text also refers to "Elysium," or paradise. Sometimes Elysium is imagined as a place where heroes have continued their interests from their lives. Others suppose it is a location filled with feasting, sport, song; Joy is the "daughter of Elysium" in Friedrich Schiller's "Ode to Joy."

(Odets' biographer, Margaret Brenman-Gibson, has written: "He [Odets] began a file marked 'Beethoven,' noting the similarities between himself and the great composer and analyzing the sources and forms of his genius. Both, he felt, were shy, suspicious, essentially homeless, poor, and parentless -- negative elements that Beethoven had changed into a positive but embattled idealism, a reaching out for 'Bruderschaft' [Brotherhood].)

Odets' choice of the title Paradise Lost is an overt reference to Milton's poem of the same name and, arguably, a veiled reference to the term "Elysium" (or paradise) in Friedrich Schiller's poem "Ode to Joy," which Beethoven set in the final movement of his Ninth Symphony.

In the play Paradise Lost the character Ben Gordon is an Olympic runner. In the year 1990, when I had the dream I titled "The Dream of the Four Miltons" I used to run every morning. Perhaps there is some relationship in my mind between Jesse Raben, my coworker in 1990, and the African American runner, Jesse Owens. Significantly, the identity elements of competition and humiliation present in the manifest dream ("I am the great Stanley Palombo, a professor of medicine, and one of the greatest psychiatrists in the world. And room service is sending you a birthday cake? Who are you? You're nobody!") recur in the relationship between Jesse Owens and Adolf Hitler, who was humiliated by Owens' victories at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. (In the context of the 1936 Olympics the word "race" is a play on words denoting both ethnicity and athletic competition.)

The "events of the previous day" of "The Dream of the Four Miltons" featured my watching an episode of the TV series "Baywatch" -- an episode that featured a waterskiing race.

Glad, as his suns fly
Through the Heavens’ glorious plan,
Run, brothers, your race,
Joyful, as a hero to victory.

3. Apparently Wagner's opera Parsifal was a favorite of Odets. The "transformation music" from Act 1 of Parsifal accompanies a scene change in which a symbolic father initiates a son figure into his world.

A few days later we established contact. By that time the Jewish ghetto as it existed in 1942 until July 1942 did not exist anymore. Out of approximately four hundred thousand Jews, some three hundred thousand were already deported from the ghetto. So within the outside walls, practically there were some four units. The most important was the so-called central ghetto. They were separated by some areas inhabited by Aryans and already some areas not inhabited by anybody. There was a building. This building was constructed in such a way that the wall which separated the ghetto from the outside world was a part of the back of the building, so the front was facing the Aryan area. There was a tunnel. We went through this tunnel without any kind of difficulty. What struck me was that now he was a completely different man--the Bund leader, the Polish nobleman. I go with him. He is broken down, like a Jew from the ghetto, as if he had lived there all the time. Apparently, this was his nature. This was his world. So we walked the streets. He was on my left. We didn't talk very much. He led me. Well, so what? So now comes the description of it, yes? Well . . . naked bodies on the street. I ask him: "Why are they here?"

(According to the psychiatrist Michael Friedman, M.D. there is a relationship between "survivor guilt"-- a phenomenon first observed in Holocaust survivors -- and families preoccupied with food and eating. See Survivor Guilt in the Pathogenesis of Anorexia Nervosa. See paragraph 10, below.)

4. Odets wrote: "Would you believe that Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, and Schumann are as alive to me as almost anyone I know? It has been true for many years, and there I am talking about men I do not know in life no less! " I include this quote in my book Significant Moments.

5. One of the characters in the play is named Schnabel, perhaps based on the classical pianist Artur Schnabel who was a great Beethoven interpreter. The pianist, coincidentally, had two sisters named Clara (like the character in Paradise Lost) and Frieda (Frieda, ha!). Arthur Schnabel had been a pupil of the internationally celebrated piano pedagogue Theodor Leschetizky. In the play Paradise Lost Pearl Gordon, a classical pianist, studied under a pupil of Leschetizky. Pearl's boyfriend, Felix, was named for the composer Felix Mendelssohn, or so he tells Pearl.

6. Throughout my childhood we visited Atlantic City every July. We stayed with a family who lived in a large three-storey house at Vermont and Oriental Avenue in the Inlet, the Lischins: Sylvia and Sam. (Sam Katz was the name of Leo Gordon's business partner in Paradise Lost.) Sylvia's mother, the mater familias, as it were, was Ethel Blum. Ethel Blum had a brother who lived at the house who occupied the same shady world as the character Kewpie in Paradise Lost.

The Lischins had four sons. On the first floor of the Lischin house was a grocery store; a sign outside the store was emblazoned "Blum Delicatessen." So the Blum Delicatessen in Atlantic City paralleled the Cameo Shop in Paradise Lost, a women's handbag business owned and operated by the characters Leo Gordon and Sam Katz. The Lischin household was populated by a "gallery of characters."

7. In Paradise Lost the son Ben Gordon was an Olympic athlete; Odets' stage directions for the play indicate that there is to be a statue of Ben in a running pose in the Gordon home. One of the Lischin boys (Eddie Lischin) was very athletic. His athletic trophies lined the living room mantlepiece. (I was always so envious of those trophies!) Eddie Lischin was a year older than my sister. My father used to say about Eddie Lischin: "He's very wiry." Eddie Lischin still reminisces about Growing Up Athletic in Atlantic City. I think he has a Jesse Raben complex!

8. In the Lischin living room there was a piano. I don't know who played piano. The instrument was kept covered in cloth as if it were in mourning. The Lischin piano always seemed mysterious to me. Sylvia Lischin's niece, Susan Blum, was an accomplished classical pianist and for a time majored in music at Glassboro College, in New Jersey. I remember her father, Eddie Blum, saying in the summer of 1968: "Susan is working onClaire de Lune. That's a difficult piece." I was 14 years old at that time.

10. The character Ben Gordon in Paradise Lost derived his name from Odets' cousin, Benny Rossman. Odets was born in the same year as my father: 1906. In the 1930s my father had been a close friend of Odets' cousin, who lived in Philadelphia. Odets' biographer (the late Margaret Brenman-Gibson) describes the Rossman home in North Philadelphia as "a freewheeling, lively place filled with Yiddish talk and Yiddish newspapers. . . . [A family member] recalled 'lots of people always dropping in, some living with us for a few months if they had no work . . . always good food.'" My father was one of those "people always dropping in" for food and talk. My father's relationship with the Blums and Lischins in Atlantic City was similar to his relationship with the Rossmans. Food played an important role in the Blum family. Sylvia Blum Lischin's brother, Eddie Blum, owned a restaurant. Sylvia Lishin operated a grocery store. The Blum Delicatessen had its origins in Ethel Blum cooking knishes and selling them on the beach in Atlantic City.

11. Democratic Party Politics is a theme in Paradise Lost as it is in "The Dream of the Four Miltons." The pushy Democratic ward heeler, Phil Foley, appears in Act 1 of Paradise Lost. Foley's associate is named Milton. Act 1 of Paradise Lost takes place on Friday November 11, 1932 -- Armistice Day. Franklin Roosevelt had been elected President a few days earlier, on November 8.

12. A theme in "The Dream of the Four Miltons" is my father's heart disease. In Paradise Lost Ben Gordon's career as a runner is brought to an end by the diagnosis of heart disease.

Annie Reich has written on the function of rescue fantasies in psychoanalytic work, and has dealt with the conditions under which they are helpful or cause damage. The rescue fantasy is a highly important psychic structure, on which the socially valuable behavior of many people depends. Yet the fantasy is the outgrowth of ambivalence . . .; it makes social behavior dependent on the object's being in a critical condition. A person has to be in dire distress before the appropriate social action is initiated, and the positive object relationship is usually discontinued soon after the object's full restoration. The man who is preoccupied by an excessive rescue fantasy seems to say: "If you want me to love you and to win my affection, you must first jump into . . .K.R. Eissler, Talent and Genius.. . . the water, . . .Jack London, The Sea Wolf.. . . the dark moving water . . .Francis Goodrich, Albert Hackett and Frank Capra, It’s a Wonderful Life.. . . of the . . .Jack London, The Sea Wolf.. . . lake." It is noteworthy to observe how often subjects in whose lives rescue fantasies occupy a prominent place, are deficient in affectionate behavior toward members of their immediate environment.K.R. Eissler, Talent and Genius.Talent and Genius, published in 1971, is itself a work of extreme eccentricity. It was written in response to another book, published two years earlier, entitled Brother Animal: The Story of Freud and Tausk, by Paul Roazen, which implicated Freud in the suicide, at the age of forty, of one of his early disciples, Victor Tausk. Roazen's book is trivial and slight. Its scholarship, like that of many other works of pop history, does not hold up under any sort of close scrutiny. But, unlike most pop historians, whose sins against the spirit of fact go undetected because nobody takes the trouble to check up on them, Roazen had the misfortune to attract the notice of someone who was willing to go to any lengths to catch him out. In Talent and Genius, Eissler administers one of the most severe trouncings of one scholar by another in the annals of scholarly quarreling. Like Superman rushing to the aid of a victim of injustice, Eissler hastened to defend Freud against what he believed "may properly be called the most brutal attack ever directed at him"—Roazen's insinuation that Freud was to blame for Tausk's death because, motivated by sexual and professional jealousy, he turned away from him at a crucial moment.Janet Malcolm, In the Freud Archives.The exhibitionistic, narcissistic background of the rescue fantasy is evident: accomplishment in the service of the object leads to a narcissistic elevation of the self. In Tausk's instance it is striking that rescue actions were more often than not combined with a considerable aggression against authority. It is hardly possible to estimate what might have been the stronger motive in Tausk's case: the rescue of a person in danger, or the showing up of abusive authority.K.R. Eissler, Talent and Genius.During World War I, Tausk served on the Austrian front as an army psychiatrist. He acted with genuine heroism in protecting deserters from the Imperial Austrian Army which enlisted peasants who had never understood what conscription meant.Paul Roazen, Tausk's Contribution to Psychoanalysis.Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs.Henry David Thoreau, On the Duty of Civil Disobedience.Helpless and confused young men found themselves in danger of being shot for their simple primitive desire to creep back to the shelter of their homes. Unlike psychiatrists who behaved sadistically toward all 'malingerers', Tausk went out of his way to save people, using psychiatric diagnoses for humane ends. He intervened, for example, in behalf of a young boy who was to be court-martialed for failure to help shoot a whole group of enemy prisoners . . .Paul Roazen, Tausk's Contribution to Psychoanalysis.. . . American and British prisoners of war, who were . . .Leonard Shengold, Soul Murder.
. . . probably akin to him in spirit, in education, in moral discipline and values.Boris Pasternak, Dr. Zhivago.Tausk saved his life by testifying that such a boy, reared in the highest standards of civilized life, could not be expected to assist in such an execution.Paul Roazen, Tausk's Contribution to Psychoanalysis.With some, of course, who had been the recipients of his not infrequent rescue actions, he had a reputation for goodness. But it would be a gross mistake in psychological judgment if one were to equate acts of rescue with the presence of goodness.K.R. Eissler, Talent and Genius.________________________________

I spent about two weeks in Atlantic City, from August 15 to August 26. I had ten days at the beach. I would have had eleven days, but it rained all day on Thursday August 25, and I'm not hard-core or psychotic enough to spend time on the beach in the rain.

I parked myself at the Montgomery Avenue Lifeguard station a block down from the Tallahassee Avenue Lifeguard station in front of the Plaza and Berkley Condominiums, a few blocks from Ventnor. The lifeguards at the Montgomery Avenue station were men. I have misogynist tendencies, and I refuse to be protected by the famale lifeguards stationed at Tallahassee Avenue. If women can compete with male swimmers, why are swimming competitions divided by sex. Do you ever see a female swimmer compete against Michael Phelps? Of course not! No woman could compete with Michael Phelps.

Call it sexist or gay, but I would rather entrust my life to David Hasselhoff than to Pamela Anderson.

Yes, women make excellent federal judges, attorneys general, and secretaries of state -- but while I'm on the beach, I prefer to be watched over by male lifeguards. Is that so wrong?

Friday, August 26, 2011

Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.T.S. Eliot, Excerpt from Burnt Norton.
For Freud, who seemed to use every hour productively, the momentary present was almost hidden between past and future. The present took its meaning from the larger perspective, the non-present, from which Freud derived his higher motive, his drive for success and permanence.E. James Lieberman, Acts of Will: The Life and Work of Otto Rank.
It is impossible to date with any precision the time that Freud began his momentous self-scrutiny. By 1893 or, at the latest, 1894, the pressure for generalization always active within him had brought him to the recognition that the mental activities his patients reported to him strikingly resembled his own fantasies, thoughts, and wishes.Peter Gay, Freud: For the Marble Tablet.
Within that same decade, Freud, a neurologist fascinated by hypnosis, created the science and art of psychoanalysis. He introduced the term in 1896, borrowing “analysis” from chemistry.E. James Lieberman, Acts of Will: The Life and Work of Otto Rank.
During these years . . .Erik H. Erikson, Insight and Responsibility.
. . . the seemingly stable days of the 1890's . . .Donald A. Wollheim, Introduction to H.G. Wells, The Time Machine.
. . . Freud at times expressed some despair and confessed to some neurotic symptoms which reveal phenomological aspects of a creative crisis. He suffered from a “railroad phobia” and from acute fears of an early death—both symptoms of an over-concern with the all too rapid passage of time. “Railroad phobia” is an awkwardly clinical way of translating Reisefieber—a feverish combination of pleasant excitement and anxiety. But it all meant, it seems, on more than one level that he was “coming too late,” that he was “missing the train,” that he would perish before reaching some “promised land.” He could not see how he could complete what he had visualized if every single step took so much "work, time and error." Erik H. Erikson, Insight and Responsibility.
Every now and again he . . .Anthony Trollope, La Vendee.
. . . thought of the problems in school arithmetic in which you are asked how soon and in what order trains, starting at different times and going at different speeds, get to their destinations; he tried to remember the general method of solving them, but it escaped him and he went on from these school memories to
others and to still more complicated speculations. He tried to imagine several people whose lives run parallel and close together but move at different speeds, and he wondered in what circumstances some of them would overtake and survive others. Something like a theory of relativity governing the hippodrome of life occurred to him, but he became confused and gave up his analogies.Boris Pasternak, Dr. Zhivago.
He was obviously, I believe, hiding the weaknesses in his nature, covering the areas which were most vulnerable to hurt, concealing the vast but vague designs shaping in his dreams. One of the weaknesses most noticeable and most significant was that lateness to arrive at the various stages of maturity. This had the effect of making much that went on about him slightly incomprehensible. He knew that certain things happened and would happen, but he was not quite certain why. And he did not want this insufficiency to be known. He went to great lengths to keep it hidden. That repository of concealment by now begins to seem
bottomless.Rexford G. Tugwell, The Democratic Roosevelt.
At this time, Freud speaks of his discoveries with the anguish of one who has seen a promised land which he must not set foot on:Erik H. Erikson, Insight and Responsibility.
I am beginning now to fear that I must wait a lifetime. . . .
If that is so, it remains for us to live as though it were not so. But to me the future is still black and blank—H.G. Wells, The Time Machine.
We look back on these . . .George Steiner, In Bluebeard's Castle.
. . . self-appraisals . . .Peter Gay, Freud: A Life for Our Time.
. . . now with bewildered irony.George Steiner, In Bluebeard's Castle. ____________________________________

DENNIS M. RACE: We have decided to terminate your employment.

FREEDMAN: [silence.]

____________________________________

For the chapter: Sometimes it's best to keep your mouth shut

HIRING PARTNER: So, Mr. Roosevelt, I see that you didn't earn your law degree.

FDR: No. I completed my course work. But I didn't sit for exams in my final semester. As you know, the New York Bar does not require an applicant to have earned a law degree.

HIRING PARTNER: Well, some people take the trouble to sit for final exams.

FDR: I'm not "some people."

HIRING PARTNER: Roosevelt. That's an impressive name. Are you related to Theodore Roosevelt?

FDR: Yes, he is a distant cousin.

HIRING PARTNER: Have you thought about a career in politics?

FDR: As a matter of fact I have. I have it all mapped out in my mind. Governor of New York. Then I plan to run for President of the United States. I plan to be the first three-term president.

HIRING PARTNER: Three-term president? Why not four terms?

FDR: Indeed! Why NOT four terms!!

HIRING PARTNER: Just what would you like to accomplish in your career?

FDR: Well, as President of the United States, I plan to totally revolutionize the political and economic basis of our society. America won't be the same once I've completed my three terms.

HIRING PARTNER: Any other plans, Mr. Roosevelt?

FDR: Yes. As president I plan to finance a program to develop a weapon of mass destruction that could eventually annihilate the planet.

Thank you for writing to the Criminal Division. From the content of your e-mail message, we have determined that your concerns fall under the jurisdiction of the component of the Department of Justice. That component also maintains a web site and e-mail address on the Internet which you may contact at http://www.ssagov/. <http://www.ssagov/.>
________________________________

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Dear Friends -- Swimming is wonderful. Vermont Avenue is beautiful. I really hope you guys are not working too hard while all I do is sleep and sunbathe and eat. Anyway -- I hope to see you someday, somewhere -- Gary

JERRY: Yea. She wanted to design zoos. She's one of those people who thinks she could make an original contribution to zoo design. Jeffrey thought -- with his interest in nature and his wife's interest in zoo planning they'd be unstoppable in the zoo world.

KRAMER: Like the Sheindlins. Those Sheindlins, they cornered the TV court field, you know.

JERRY: (to Kramer:) Did they have any competition?

ELAINE: Who?

KRAMER: Jerry Sheindlin -- People's Court? And his wife, Judge Judy.

ELAINE: Judge J-u-u d-e-e! J-u-u d-e-e!

GEORGE: So, Jeffrey and his wife were going to be a zoo team. Sounds like an antitrust violation.

The package of materials you sent to the Administrative Office of the Pennsylvania courts, alerting that office of your disability, has been referred to the Office of Disciplinary Counsel as the agency of the Supreme Court which handles matters regarding license to practice. I plan to contact Dr. Ticho with the "Authorization for Disclosure" enclosed with your correspondence, and also to review the decision of Judge xxxxxxx reported in your letter.

If you feel you are disabled and unable to practice at this point, the appropriate step is to seek a transfer to inactive status pursuant to Rule 301 of the Pennsylvania Rules of Disciplinary Enforcement. This can be done on an adjudication of incapacity, or when a disability is raised as a defense in a disciplinary proceedings. When I receive the order of Judge xxxxxxx, I will advise you whether it is an appropriate basis for a transfer. A transfer to inactive status would relieve you for your responsibility to pay your annual registration fee and also of your continuing Legal Education requirements.

I will contact you again once I have received the information I have requested. Thank you for keeping us informed of your status.

Akin Gump started its surveillance of me in late October 1988. My sister's telephone number at that time was 609 461 5121. She lived in Delran, New Jersey at that time. She moved to Moorestown, New Jersey in 1990.

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Jerrold Zwirn worked for many years as a librarian at the Cleveland Park Neighborhood Library in Washington, D.C. He worked under the supervision of branch manager Brian P. Brown. Mr. Zwirn is a U.S. Army veteran.

A Google search yielded the following:

Jerrold Zwirn is a reference librarian in a branch of the District of Columbia Public Library. He is the author of Congressional Publications, (1983), Congressional Publications and Proceedings (1988), and other works. He has contributed several articles to Government Publications Review. An abiding interest in government decisionmaking and library service has led him to study the relationship between federal business and information output.

I have lived fully and deeply. I have tasted passion, crime and even murder. It is for you to judge me. You must weigh the good against the evil, the passion against the tenderness, the crime against the charity, the pleasure against the pain. I began life as I am ending it, alone. I rode alone on the bosom of the Nile in a boat of reeds dawbed with pitch and tied with fowler's knots. Thus the city of Thebes was accustomed to dispose of its unwanted children. I grew up on the waterfront of the city in the house of my foster parents who had saved me from the river. My foster father lived there by choice because he was also, by choice, physician to the poor of the city. From the rich he could have commanded princely fees, for he alone, in Thebes, was master of the ancient art of opening skulls. From the beginning I kept to myself. I used to wander alone on the banks of the Nile. Until the day came when I was ready to enter the School of Life. In the School of Life were trained the chosen young men of Egypt. The future scientists, philosophers, statesmen and generals. All the learning of Egypt lay in the keeping of the gods. For ten years I served them in the school that I might earn the right to call myself a physician. I learned to bend my body to them, but that was all. My mind still asked a question. Why?